Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday June 19, 2005 @09:49PM
from the microgravity-for-macrogains dept.

AnKsT wrote to mention an article on NASA's site about creating and manipulating glass in space. From the article: "In microgravity...you don't need a container. In Day's initial experiments, the melt--a molten droplet about 1/4 inch in diameter--was held in place inside a hot furnace simply by the pressure of sound waves emitted by an acoustic levitator. With that acoustic levitator, explains Day, 'we could melt and cool and melt and cool a molten droplet without letting it touch anything.' As Day had hoped, containerless processing produced a better glass. To his surprise, though, the glass was of even higher quality than theory had predicted."

Also intriguing to space researchers is fluoride glass. A blend of zirconium, barium, lanthanum, sodium and aluminum, this type of glass (also known as "ZBLAN") is a hundred times more transparent than silica-based glass. It would be exceptional for fiber optics.

A fluoride fiber would be so transparent, says Day, that light shone into one end, say, in New York City, could be seen at the other end as far away as Paris. With silicon glass fibers, the light signal degrades along the way.

a) At least half of the interesting discussions on Slashdot are offtopic.b) I think that one should be prepared to participate in any discussions arising from content in one's own signature.

In general, it's in pretty bad taste to put something potentially inflammatory in your signature, because of the tendency to incite threadjackings. Religion and politics both usually fall into that category, regardless of where it falls on the spectrum.

Will this sort of effect be important in hibernation and cryogenic storage of human beings?

Think about it like this, we develop a way to freeze people and thaw them out, test it for a few years here on Earth, deploy the system for space trials and find that the human body reacts quite differently to crystalisation under microgravity.

On the other hand, the reason that glass is resistant to crystallisation in microgravity is because of the way the liquid glass flows in the presence of gravity.

The article doesn't make it clear whether this property is unique to glasses, or whether it is normal for any molten material. It could be that semiconductor materal still does crystallize much more easily in microgravity.

That would be a dream - under 1900$/kg? The shuttle cost estimates vary, but are usually over 15,000$/kg. ESA bulk launches are 10,000$/kg. Bulk Russian and Chinese rocket launches are around 7,000$/kg. SpaceX thinks that by the time they get to their Falcon V, they'll be down to almost 2500$/kg (which would be truly incredible - time will tell if they can pull it off).

If you can kick hard enouh to add 7,800m/s velocity (its orbital velocity), I'll be darn impressed;) Even if you can kick hard enough to get enough atmospheric drag to take care of the rest of the energy (say, 1,000 m/s), I'll still be darn impressed.

Why do so many people have this mistaken idea that you can just jump out of orbit?

Scifi authors are just people who are good at making semi-plausible science to help an otherwise boring plot along. It's like curry...the meat's pretty lackluster, so there's a strong sauce. Few of them actually envisioned stuff that w

Dude, I was just thinking about how much I would pay for something like that... Then I got to thinking, about thinking, about thinking, about thinking about this glass... and then I got like real confused and decided to use a pipe instead.

It's a good thing they figured out a way to make glass in space. Maybe now they come overcome the titanic production hurdles involved with producing glass here on Earth, and bring down its astronomic cost.

But how do you get the glass back from space? You gotta "drop" it down to earth to get it back, right!
Of course I understand the real ability is to work with micro sized pieces we'd never be able to manapulate here. at that scale glass is nearly as strong as metal... espically flawless glass.

It's a good thing they figured out a way to make glass in space. Maybe now they come overcome the titanic production hurdles involved with producing glass here on Earth, and bring down its astronomic cost.

Hopefully they will. Ever tried to purchase a large sheet of strong Low-E glass? It's not exactly cheap.

Put together an 8 foot long fish tank sometime and tell me it's cheap and plentiful.

Acryllic would be close if it wasn't so easy to scratch -- horrible for a large window.

This article is a perfect example of the sort of technological advances that will be possible when we establish a space habitat capable of sustaining industrial production. Microgravity is a condition that is almost impossible to replicate here at the bottom of the gravity well, and we are just beginning to realize the applications.

OK, I know it's a joke but I just love being a wet blanket. Obviously, the glass we make on earth is fine for coke bottles. It's also plain that this guy wants to make glass that will be unique from that made on earth in the hope that it's special properties will have special applications.

How about "Transparent Aluminum"?

In Earth-orbit, it turns out, these molten liquids don't crystallize as easily as they do on Earth. It's easier for glass to form. So not only can you make glass that's less cont

I'm trying to find an application for either glass, aluminum, transparent alumnium, or reflective glass, that would justify valuing it at substantially over $7000 a kilogram. Remarkably strong, corrosion resistant glass had better not cost enough that transporting one window from factory to installation costs more than the entire rest of the house. Glass motors sound like a wonderful idea for... well, absolutely bloody nothing. Might as well grind up diamonds into a fine powder and sprinkle them into the

First, you're assuming that transportation costs will never go down. Granted, it'll always be more expensive to ship something to and from orbit than it is to truck it across the continent, but the cost differential should decrease somewhat in the future as technology improves.

Second, what about things that simply cannot be produced in a terrestrial environment? I see no evidence that this is the case, but humor me: suppose you can fabricate semiconductors that are significantly higher-performing in mic

Some of you might not remember the Transformer's episode. However it's useful in regards to building in space. Using focused sunlight and magnets you could build space stations and space craft. It would solve the delema mentioned in another article about the aging shuttle fleet. Why carry stuff up, when we can use moon rocks to build it.

At Six Flags in California, they have a ride where you sit in a chair that they lift up high. Then they accelerate the chair down to the ground, simulating weigthlessness for a brief period of time.

If research shows some kind of advantage of producing new types of glass under zero g, couldn't companies invest in some kind of apparatus like this and invent a process to produce their zero-g glasses on Earth?

Although this article [bobpark.org] is a couple of years old, the scientific community is not necessarily convinced of microgravity's promise.

Robert Park and the American Physical Society have long been foes of both the Shuttle and the ISS. Take his comments with a grain of salt.

For example, take section 2 of the linked article - which criticizes a research program for not producing 'unique results'. Anyone familiar with science knows that non-unique results are as important as unique results.

Robert Park and the American Physical Society have long been foes of both the Shuttle and the ISS.

First off, the American Physical Society [aps.org] has no stance for or against the Shuttle and the ISS. They are a professional society for physicists. They occasionally perform studies or issue statements based on areas of their expertise. The only statement about the ISS that I am aware is Statement 91.2 [aps.org] and was released in 1991. Basically it said that the APS feels there is no current credible scientific ju

Basic research tends to be expensive. Once we know how to make these glasses, it becomes an exercise in engeneering, and the price comes down. Yes, it can cost $7000 or so per kilo to bring it down from orbit, and it may still will in 50 years. But so what? How much will $7000 buy 50 years from today? Not as much as it does now, that's for sure. And if there's enough profit out there, the costs will come down as more and more ships are going up and back.

Yes, it can cost $7000 or so per kilo to bring it down from orbit, and it may still will in 50 years. But so what? How much will $7000 buy 50 years from today? Not as much as it does now, that's for sure.

Knock, knock! Econ 101 is calling.

Inflation will increase that $7000/kg just much as it will devalue the $7000. So, based on your hypothetical of it not getting any cheaper to bring stuff out of orbit, 50 years from now it is going to cost a heck of a lot more than $7000/kg.

Back when the IBM PC first came out, you could buy a top-of-the-line PC for about $2000. You still can, even with inflation, and you get a lot more for it. My point is that even if the cost is still $7000/Kg, the price will be much less in purchasing power.

No, it's not to make purer martini glasses for snobs who demand only the very best. From the article:

"But why is that important? What's wrong with glass made of silica?

For windows silica is just fine. But glass made from other chemical compositions offers a panoply of unexpected properties. For example, there are "bioactive glasses" that can be used to repair human bones. These glasses eventually dissolve when their work is done. On the other hand, Day has developed glasses which are so insoluble in the body that they are being used to treat cancer by delivering high doses of radiation directly to a tumor site."

The latter sounds like something my company helped work on. The medicine is encapsulated in microscopic beads, which are then injected into the bloodstream. You then image the region of interest with ultrasound. When you have it focused where you want it, hit the button, the frequency changes, bubbles shatter, and medicine is delivered precisely where you want it.

It's interesting research, but the manufacturing-in-space argument is weak. This has been used as a justification for the expense of going to orbit with astronauts, and it never rings true to me. Floride glass fiber won't be manufactured more than 100 feet from the surface of the Earth in the forseeable future. Has any of the materials-properties-in-space research has lead to new commercial products?

What's really needed from space manufacturing is the tools to continue space exploration. For truely state of the art space stuff the drop-out rate of parts is near 50% that you have to make to get enough usable ones.. that number's gotta get way down. Not to mention were're starting to make the technology leap from cutting parts out of blocks of stuff to steering the building of the momlecules that make up stuff... there's not the facilities on earth to do that economicaly

One of the space products has been Microspheres [microspher...pheres.com] several magnitudes more precise than those made on earth. Other of the NASA Microgravity projects [nasa.gov] can lead directly to ultrapure chip development for use in, for example, pinhead size medical and scientific gas chromatographs [shu.ac.uk] and mass spectrometers.

Because the microgravity should allow for high chip yield and high quality, the remaining issue is cost of production.

Allowing for $10,000 per Kg (source [cato.org]) for a mature launch/return system like the Saturn 5,

It would probably be much cheaper to simply make an express elevator on earth that recreates the micro-gravity. I can see most of this research being put to use out in the asteroid belt, but that's considerably farther down the road.

We got enough problems with Bush relatives. There's Jeb in Florida, trying to push the Schiavo case as far as he can take it, no doubt hoping to be the third Bush in the White House. Please, DON'T think of the children, leave them darned twins out of it!

Unless, maybe, they can marry each other and one can be the President and the other can be the first, uhh, spouse?

Only a few serious answers so far, but do you realize how important this kind of work could be?
He has proven a concept. Now it is much more likely for a corperation to invest in space stations to build their products. I'm not saying it'll happen within the next year, but that is it closer. Now corperations will feel the investment is less risky with much more payoff. Can you imagine having your CPU made with the parts so much more pure then they are now? Engineers could build smaller chips because they wouldn't have to account for the impurities that naturally come in the materials.

Right. Until there's an accident when someone is too busy playing with their velco stripe and a blob of molten glass goes into someone's eye on the other side of the station. If that happens over the state of California, Cal-OSHA will be all over the space station like Bill Clinton with an intern. They would have to shut down the space program until it was safe go back into space -- again.

"He did some glass-melting experiments, trying to pull thin fibers out of melts," recounts Day. "During the low-gravity portion of the plane's flight, when g was almost zero, the fibers came out with no trouble. But during the double-gravity portion of the plane's flight, the fiber that he was pulling totally crystallized."

Let me translate for the old fogies in the audience-There are two possible definitions here.

The standard use:"...the fiber that he was pulling completely crystalized."which would mean literally 100% of the fiber did crystalize, which I guess is suprising.

or the implied use, which means:"...the fiber that he was pulling crystallized and suprised us." i.e. it may or may not have 100% crystalized, perhaps only 80% or even 50% crystalized, but the fact that it did was completely unexpected under those conditi

While this may seem a bit odd, seeing as how they'd have to get that glass back to Earth without shattering it, they don't need to worry going back to Earth to make profits.

This is the perfect thing for moving spacestations and eventual moon colonization forward. The station and moon have to deal with micro-meteor showers, which don't bother us because the rocks burn up in the atmosphere. Better glass would be a great contribution to these places to put up with the showers without suffering the view- the first private places on the moon will likely be held by the ultra wealthy, and, by golly, they'll want a view! Astronauts would probably thing it's damn skippy, too.

Then, as most good inventions work, as the rich buy it, it eventually becomes cheaper and cheaper until Joe America can sit on his front porch with his friends on the moon and chuck empty beer cans at their super-glass dome without worry, just to watch them 'float' through the air.

Assuming they find an economical way to get the glass to Earth, this can be perfect for deep-sea scientific endevours- glass that will hold up to higher pressures would allow for long time monitoring of underwater ecosystems with less reliance on miniature subs and wetsuits. Perhaps we'll even get talking dolphins.

I think the dolphins are actually talking already. They are just talking to each other, and in a language we don't understand yet. I think I'v watched something about understanding som eof the dolphins whistles on Discovery or somewhere else about it a while ago. I bet a google search could come up with something as usual.

Glass blowery is an art form that all true geeks should appreciate. It combines the best of chemistry with the best of blowery and some of the most complex mathematics. Indeed, using fairly advanced physics, calculus and fluid dynamics it is possible to blow shapes such as the Archimedes spiral and the Lagrange multiloop. While most traditional glass blowers do not have the mathematics or physics background necessary to calculate the algorithm to blow awe inspiring shapes, most geeks do. It's too bad that more geeks aren't into the art form. Their talents could lead to fantastic, abstract creations!

Well, there are a certain set of steps that you follow to create certain shapes. You have to calculate the amount of blowing required, the number of turns, the angle of such turns, the velocity of such turns, and so on. It is very simliar to the control protocols of manufacturing robotics, except they are executed by a human instead of a robot.

Ahhh, have you ever blown glass? I have, in college, and here's the thing: you need to keep putting the piece back in to the furnace because the glass cools down. Glass is droopy, and you need to keep spinning it to keep the piece from falling over. Shaping the stuff isn't a science, it's an art. When you get a blob on the end of your blow tube, you blow a little, then go scoop up some more, blow a little, round and cool it with a wet wooden block, scoop some more, and so on. Then there is the blowing proc

If you had something that was very hot and were able to suspend it in a true vacuum, then its heat would be suspended. (is this right? could light traverse a perfect vacuum to allow the escape of energy?) Could this be a way to transfer energy around the universe? Heat something up, accelerate it and the container to transport speed, and then seal it all in a pure vacuume (it's feasible we'll one day be able to do this). When it comes near to its destination, fill the vacuume, and start drawing energy away.

I can see this as being a new field of manufacturing in the not so distant future. Imagine zero-gravity precision made materials and parts for a variety of uses. We could make better lenses for microscopes and telescopes as an example.

If you're smart, you'll start a company to capitalize on this future market;)

Wow, I really hope NASA people read Slashdot. Imagine that, without you they'd still be melting shit at random in space to kill time.

1- sand requires way less gentle treatment than electronics or humans. Means lesser costs of the rocket. And taking the furnace would cost, but that's one-time expense.2- yes, from some asteroid. Easy.3- launch from surface of asteroid - $50.4- 5ft of hyper-high-quality lenses, nanooptics, etc may be well worth several $mln.5- fill a rocket with bubblewrap or you'll end up with a lander full of glass shards.6- profit.